In conversation with Jutta Leerdam

What kind of family did you end up in?

Jutta: "I come from a very loving family, with dear parents, a brother, a sister and a younger sister. I owe my name to my father. He used to be very good at windsurfing. In his time, the German Jutta Müller was the It-girl of windsurfing; blonde, pretty, a winner... Everyone loved her. That's why my father liked that name so much. He thought: if I have a blonde daughter later, I'll name her Jutta. I feel completely happy at home and would have liked to stay there even longer. But for skating it is convenient that I now live in Heerenveen."

What are your earliest memories?

Jutta: "My earliest memories are related to vacations. Usually we spent them at a campsite in Italy."

Before skating you played other sports.

Jutta: "I played gymnastics, tennis, hockey... My parents let me play a lot of sports, because I was a busy child. They hoped that this way I would get rid of my energy and become a little calmer at home. I especially played hockey for a long time. I had a talent for that. I started at age six and always played on the selection teams. I could have grown into it, but then I would have had to go to Klein Zwitserland in The Hague and that was really quite a drive. My parents then made the choice not to do that. In the end I was glad about that, because with field hockey it would have been harder to stand out than with an individual sport like skating. You can play the stars in field hockey and still lose. One's own performance is hard to measure, then it's all about the opinions of others. With skating you go hard or not, you set a time. And that never lies. You control the result all by yourself."

Did it immediately appear that you had a talent for skating?

Jutta: "When I started at age 11, I didn't exactly have good technique. It's safe to say it didn't look like it. But I did have a lot of strength and endurance. That's basically what I rode on. My father called me "bombshell," because I was always raging. After two years of skating, I was invited by the region for a talent development program. From there it went fast. From once, I went from training once a week to six times a week. What I love about skating is that you never stop learning. You are always improving. Even if you've been skating for a lot of years, you still don't do it perfectly. It's that hard."

You chose the path of excellence in sports. Wasn't it hard to leave things for that?

Jutta: "When I was fifteen, sixteen, I did find it difficult that I couldn't go to parties with my girlfriends. But I didn't want to be tempted to drink, because I knew it wouldn't make me better. At the beginning I had trouble with that, now not at all. I'm also exhausted at eleven o'clock at night, then I just have to go to bed. I train twice a day six days a week, at some point the energy runs out."

What does a training course consist of?

Jutta: "In the summer, it's cycling, rollerblading, strength training... I have the least with rollerblading - that doesn't even look like skating. Other than that, I like everything. I'm good on the bike, in the strength room... If you can lift a lot of pounds, strength training is fun. Anything you're good at is fun."

Do you enjoy getting out of bed when you go for a race?

Jutta: "It's pure stress."

Do you sleep well the night before a qualifying match?

Jutta: "You especially shouldn't think that you probably won't fall asleep."

Do you have a ritual toward a race?

Jutta: "You can forget rituals and then you just get insecure. I don't start that."

How do you handle criticism?

Jutta: "I haven't experienced that before."

Do you also sometimes skate for fun on ditches and ponds?

Jutta: "I can't do that with my current skates. One crack and the whole iron is deformed. And on other skates it is very different, I would have to get used to that. Besides, I run the risk of falling. All the hassle, it's not worth it. Those ditches and puddles will come after my career. Hopefully together with my children and grandchildren."

In the 2016-2017 season, you won the world all-around title at the World Junior Championships at Helsinki Ice Rink. Did you already have a plan outlined for your career back then?

Jutta: "No, I look at it day by day, just always try to improve. Eventually I'll get there."

In 2019, your first senior year, you became Dutch sprint champion and captured your first world title by winning the team sprint in Inzell with Letitia de Jong and Janine Smit. How does it feel to be able to call yourself world champion?

Jutta: "Very good. But I also want to know how it feels to be an individual world champion. So I'm not there yet. It just makes me more eager."

What is your goal for this winter?

Jutta: "I'll see what it becomes. My ultimate goal is to become an Olympic champion. But I don't have the focus on that yet. I'm just working on getting better."

What will life look like ten years from now?

Jutta: "Then I'll be thirty, then I think I'll have stopped. I do want to start having children one day. Not in a few years yet, that's not possible. I have to skate."